Newsletter

Dr. Noppol Kobmoo, BIOTEC Researcher of Microbe Interaction Laboratory, was awarded a Marie Sklodowska-Curie Individual Fellowship to work with Prof. Titiana Giraud at the Ecology, Systematics and Evolution Laboratory of the University of Paris-Sud, France. He will be working on a project entitled "Insights from Population Genomics to the Evolution of Host Specificity in Insect Fungi (GenoSpec)" for 2 years starting from November 2015 to 2017.

GenoSpec aims at understanding the genomic processes underlying host adaptations of the ants-specific fungi from the species complex Ophiocordyceps unilateralis sensu lato by using a population genomics approach. This knowledge will contribute to the understanding of adaptive evolution, which is a major topic in evolutionary biology, and has potential applications in the development of fungal biological control agents against insect pests. Strains of O. unilateralis specific to three different ant species will be isolated and their genomes will be sequenced, to identify the genomic changes involved in adaptation, e.g., the genes with signatures of positive selection or specific to particular hosts. Noppol will bring his knowledge and skill on these particular fungi to enrich the expertise and the panel of biological models of the host institute in France while gaining new expertise on population genetics at a genomic level.

O. unilateralis

Marie Sklodowska-Curie Individual Fellowship is a researcher mobility scheme of the EU Horizon 2020, designed for thebest, most promising individual researchersfrom anywhere in the world.